The aim of the Maasai Mara Science and Development Action is to develop a platform that will support a large-scale interdisciplinary research program for integrative conservation and development in the Maasai Mara in Kenya.
While rich mega faunas with large annual migrations like in the Maasai Mara were once common across the Earth, they now form a unique African heritage and survive only in a declining, small part of the continent. Maasai Mara hence constitutes a unique and irreplaceable part of Africa’s nature.
The Maasai Mara ecosystem is subject to complex interactions with the human societies in which it is embedded, involving both cultural, socioeconomic, organizational and political dimensions. At the same time, the ecosystems inherently complex dynamics are also impacted by anthropogenic climate change.
Allowing it and other mega fauna-rich ecosystems to persist in an increasingly human-dominated world will require the development of integrative approaches. These approaches must bring together disciplines to tackle the complexity of external and internal societal and natural factors that now affect these ecosystems and concurrently develop a sustainable society. All these factors together will determine the dynamics and ultimately the fate of these ecosystems.
The framework built in the Maasai Mara Science and Development Action will have broad applicability and relate to many global challenges of ecological sustainability in a world with an ever-increasing human population and resource use. The challenges of the Maasai Mara may thus be local, but the perspectives are global.